Goals / Streamlining

Over the past few weeks, I have been shunning a lot of my responsibilities in exchange for what feels good, or whatever kind of time wasting I can achieve. My work and blogging both suffer from this.

I came across a new service, RescueTime, which allows me to track my PC usage, and categorize the programs/sites that I use on a daily basis so I can tell how much time I’ve wasted today.

There is a program that you download (Official releases for Mac and Windows, and a third-party Linux build), and sign up on the website, and you’re good to go. It tracks which programs are running, and through a browser extension, you can find out which web pages you’ve been visiting the most.

Another great feature is the ability to set goals in the system. I’ve set two goals:

More than 8 hours work per weekday

More than 30 minutes of blogging per day (7/week)

When I’ve reached the threshold of these goals, the service will notify me via email that I’ve exceeded the time set by myself.

These goals might seem a bit ridiculous, but they’re based in a reality in which I would like to live. I want to be able to devote a true 8 hours a day to my work, so that I can be better responsible to my job and my employers. Also, I would like to try to get this blog up and going with regular posts about various things, so if I put in a measly half hour everyday, maybe I can generate some more traffic.

I guess really my problem is content. I haven’t really provided anything exciting for everyone, but my plans are vaguely set out for the future.

If I can finagle it, I am going to put some sort of widget for everyone to see how much time I’ve put into each project anytime they log into the blog. This will also help me create a sense of accountability, because otherwise I look like I can’t reach my goals on a regular basis.

If you’re in a similar situation, you really should check out RescueTime, and give it a try for a while.